Sugary Nonsense
by my paper teeth
Summary: She'll lean in for a kiss, but instead whisper sweet mouthings of sugary nonsense against his lips / Cat & Andre


_I wrote this as a follow up to __**'Wet Gold'**. __Its just more small moments, tiny situations, possible by-products of the previous fictions' ending. Hopefully this is an improvement to its processor. Hopefully._

_Candre get so little love on fanfiction, I guess this is a plea for more peeps to feed my soppy addiction with more candre goodness._

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_He sees inspiration_

_She is inspiration_

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They stand there, cold and shivering, as the sun finally wipes away the thousands of tears with its hot breath. As the evaporating moisture lifts from their hair and skin, she pours her arms around his neck, her cheek pressed firmly against his pulse.

And she whispers _yes _over and over into his neck until they are completely dry, yet still shivering.

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Hand in hand they'll walk. His firm clasp being the only tether she has. She'll walk two steps ahead; already her eyes upon that green light of go, or three steps behind, no stone allowed to go unturned; not when there is wonder still in the world.

When they walk, they'll walk in sync. From weeks of their hidden affection, he now knows how her feet fall, and is a mirror to her gait, parallel to her meandering step.

He begins to see what she sees. The words spelt out in the trees' spidery stems. The whispers the wind plays cooly in his ears. She gladly tells him the illicit details of her neighbour's secrets without even a blush, and takes pride in her menagerie of animal sounds, her finest being the perfected bleat of a baby lamb.

They'll pass yapping poodles and slinking cats, and with each sighting of a domesticated animal, she'll conjure up a new voice, a different personality, for each unwitting creature. A small fiery orange Pomeranian has the deep groan of a Boston husk, and she'll mimic too the long drawl of a southern belle for a large, brutish Alsatian.

The air now is warm, the midday sun blazing in amongst its thin covering of wispy clouds. The trees throw shadows across her skin, as she turns to face him on the sidewalk. The lonely buzz of a wasp can be heard and the '_put put_' of a sprinkler fills his ears, as she moves her mouth up to his. The trees create a dark veil of shadow across her face and the little flecks of gold glimmer and swim in her autumnal eyes, as he realises the doey orbs are now but a few centimetres of suddenly hot air away from his own.

She leans in for a kiss, but instead whispers sweet mouthings of sugary nonsense against his lips.

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She teaches him how to watch people. They'll sit there in their local mall, in amongst the bustle of tired shoppers; viewing the world from a still point, as the discordant lives of others trickle past their position on the cold plastic bench. The autumn sun is low in the sky, and through the glass panes of the cavernous ceiling, he can see it is already turning dark outside. The florescent light of blaring shop signs give her face an unearthly glow; a rainbow of hues dance across her round cheeks and glisten upon her slick wet lips.

She shows him with obvious delight how to enter another person's life. By taking some slight interest, they can embolden themselves upon another. She giggles and chats about her theories on why the elderly woman facing them has a mop of bright purple hair; not because she picked up the wrong box of hair dye, but because she's making a political stance about gay rights. She lifts her lips to his ears and whispers about how the couple a little way away from them, slung together in a position much like their own, must have gotten together through the boy's incessant insisting and how the girl finally caved in and revealed her secret. Cat was convinced she might a robot from the future, only just now learning to love; all based on the fact that the girl had a lip ring, and the boy was blonde.

Contrary to her sugary disposition, he finds out in the food court later how she loves anchovies, artichoke hearts and anything that either begins with the letter a or bursts with colour or flavour. They've eaten together for years now, sat at the same table, shared even the same condiments. But its now, in the bubble they now, together inhabit, in which he is learns all the new wonders that make up Caterina Valentine.

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He teaches her to drive. Which is easy said then done. He drives the peeling four-seater her dad bought her to a deserted car park at the crack of dawn.

The stream of the distant motorway can be heard lightly through the window, crack opened to let the cool morning breeze through. After dusting off the sugary refuse of her breakfast from her cheeks; he sets about teaching her the car's logistics.

She just stares off at the horn in a mix of slight confusion and mild temptation. He quickly removes her hands from the centre of the wheel and places it upon the gear stick, his rough hand enveloping her slight one.

After an hour of reaffirming the various gears and speeds, he has her eventually sit on his lap, whilst he's in the driver seat. He operates the pedals, carefully timing the clutch and only lightly pressing on the accelerator, whilst she controls the wheel and the gears and she soon finds the delight of the meandering wheels. He's cautious about speed, even though they're alone on the desolate stretch of cracked tarmac; he wants no chance of any harm befalling her.

He has to keep on reminding himself that it perfectly alright for Cat to be sitting on his lap. _I'm her boyfriend_ plays over and over in his mind and her name flashes in red behind his eyes every time he blinks. Her light-hearted giggles at her ability drive the letter eight into the tarmac, hit his heart at lighting speed. Hit him with the realisation, finally, that those giggle are all his, that shower of bright red hair is all his, Cat Valentine, down to her final, last, microscopic morsel, is all his. And with this his laughter pours into the car along with her effervescent howls, as the car park, finally, begins to fill.

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He finds the world has begun to revolve around her.

Whilst she might not notice it, he sees the double takes and the second too long glances. He feels the need the hold her hand tighter, wrap himself around her and engulf her from the obvious attention. He finds she makes him maddeningly greedy, makes him want her all for himself. But not only from glancing affection, he all too aware of the trouble she can easily get her self into, and makes sure she is always, at least in the corner of his eye.

He realises his sudden spilt second possessiveness is turning him into Jade, and he lightens his hold.

He's no longer falling in love. He's in love. But he decides he'll wait to tell her.

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They'll lie together in his bare room. Bare compared to hers. A vast mattress is his bed, pushed up against the peeling paint of the radiator, and old habit that had become a ritual from younger and more terrified nights.

They'll lie together in his silent room and listen to the pounding rain, forcing its brutish entry into their quiet cornucopia.

Her ink scripted fingertips trace sweet nothings in the air; one moment trapping fleeing butterflies; another spent merely noting how her fingers could extend; the small muscles contracting and relaxing, soon allowing her to resume her capture of the figment butterflies.

Occasionally they'd brush his hand or graze his shoulder with a feather light presence, and each time he'd shift his eyes from the roving digits, to look straight into the expanse of her eyes.

She'd hover above him, never quite touching, her two skinny arms supporting her position, only the fabric from her drooping shirt, or the touch of the tendrils of her cascading hair made contact with him. The tips of her garishly colour nails, would rake light stories on the soft skin of his neck, grazing his skin so close he could imagine their soft pressure.

It was tantalizing, a game of tense teasing she gladly partook in; the role of the taunted victim forced upon him.

Eventually, he had to grab her hands and press each tiny fingertip to his lips, to reaffirm his dreams of their pressure. He had to, or surely she would drive him slowly out of his mind.

_Out of his mind and into hers._

They'd stare again, always staring, a connection in their gazes, always reaffirming their reality, to make sure one of them hadn't slipped into some slight dream where everything was hazy and oh so perfect, and the other was somewhere else, unaware and unpleasantly naïve to the others' fantasies.

He'd try and take one step forwards, but she'd have to shuffle back before she could leap forwards. They were both aware there was no return, and they both gladly raced into their conjoined fate. Their hearts were leading them down a path, and through shared gazed they could reaffirm they were, at least, travelling together.

_Screaming light years stream past their clasped hands._

She'd move back, take her hand back into her own possession, and return to making shadow puppets from the combinations of her meshing hands; a bird, a snail, a butterfly. Her gesticulating wings soon retuning to the cat and mouse game in the setting lambent glow.

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He realises he hasn't kissed her yet. He's kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, even her hair and ears. But not yet her lips. Both of them too caught up kindly in the blaze of new found affection, the excitement they both share at the revelation that they found each other is so blinding, they've forgotten that old salute of the lips.

The thought lazily drags itself across his mind, and he can no long take his eyes away from those cherry coloured petals, as they flourish in ongoing monologues about clouds and how they make seaweed crispy and the fact that she'd learning to do the splits.

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They drive for hours, round the long winding roads of unfamiliar neighbourhoods, searching for a drive through or an all night grocery store so Andre can quench Cat's raspberry slush puppy thirst.

It's the small hours of the night now, only a couple until sunrise, but fatigue is something he'll gladly put up with if he can spend some more time with her.

'Sorry I called you, I just you know woke up and my tongue was like, gosh I need raspberries and I need them in a cool liquid form. Again sorry,' she babbles, sleep depravation accelerating her words.

'No problem. If slush puppies are what my girl's gotta have, slush puppies are what my girls gotta have, no matter what time.' He takes a second to turn towards her and whispers; 'My Little Red'

'I like it when you say Little Red, say it again,' she sighs, and stretches across the gearbox to rest her head on his shoulder.

'Little Red, Little Red' he softly sings, and he knows she's already fallen back asleep.

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Under the blanket sky of the twinkling constellations he laces his hand in hers. The hood of his car is still warm from the recently quiet engine, and the windshield suffices for a practical abet uncomfortable backrest.

She had woken up as soon as he pulled in at a 24-7 grocery store, the fluorescents had coaxed her eyes open and she'd leapt out of the convertible. She'd danced up the isles, as he followed slowly marvelling at how awake and alert she suddenly was. It seemed everyone still in the store were merely there to feed their variation addictions.

_Chemical dependencies were without the polite tendencies to respect the transiency of sleep._

_A young, jumpy student stared at the cigarette rack for a full five minutes before selecting a small pack of camels and a light, paying in full with tapered fingers tapping a slow melodic drumming upon the counter. A soccer mom, donned in a lurid pink tracksuit, purchased a large bottle of vodka, and it was after their escape, when Cat was already gulping down the blue ice, did he notice the woman taking rapid swings as she sauntered back to her large four by four._

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They're still on the hood of his car and the crickets now play sweet melodies, which rise and fall in their harmonious tunes and which he joins with a low murmuring voice. She presses her hot breath against his cheek and plays with his necklace, mirroring the beat of their shared heart with light drumming along his collarbone.

The sky is a light blue, already expectant of the sun's imminent arrival, to fill the air and illuminate the sparse cloud cover.

It's in moments like these, in which he learns the most. Of her constant aspiration to be something different and her roving dreams that never seem settle. One moment she's intent on becoming an airhostess, the next she wants to be a deep-sea welder. He notices through the vibrations in her throat that she always speaks with such fluidity, her mind might wonder but her mouth can surely keep up. _Her mouth_.

The thought enters his head again as he turns to watch her lips spell out those final words.

'I think I might love you.'

She sits up as soon as she says it, suddenly unsure, and he's certain if his arms weren't firmly around her waist she's squirm away and run. She bites her lip, her eyes downcast and flitting, not sure where to settle. She chokes on her next words and they die in her throat as she clamps her mouth shut with a quick hand.

'Pretend you didn't hear that.' She manages to squeak, the other hand joining its sister as a verbal dam.

'Why not?' He sits up too, and placing his hands on her wrists, he lowers them gently to her lap.

'Cat, come on, tell me why?'

She'll only speak when their eyes meet, but even then, after a long pregnant pause; her voice is quiet and small.

'Because you don't love me back, I was silly. Sorry, please plea-'

'Who said I didn't? He cuts her off and relishes at the sight as the smile finally creeps back across her face.

Finally the sun peaks its youthful head out from the horizon, waves of coronal light blares out groggily, as the sun rears its white-hot head. The light stretches out and brushes its yellowy fingers across their faces, filling their eyes with gold.

He leans in and finally captures her raspberry tinted lips and together, they enter the new day.

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_Just taking small steps in their relationship, bit by bit bleeding out the story. Reviews, comments and critiques are the kindest gift you can give me. _


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